Dark Side of Night Painting

Maija Vanhatapio (1946) was born in Helsinki, lives and works in Kajaani in Eastern Finland. She graduated as a graphic designer and studied fine arts at the University of Lapland. She is a member of the Oulu Artists' Association, which is the Oulu Region Professional Art Association. She has several private and group gallery exhibitions a year. She is also represented in some online galleries, competitions, magazines. Vanhatapio studies and experiments textures, colors and lights of the Nordic landscape through different media. In creating my works, I use the basic elements of painting: line, color, texture, shape and space. Graphic lines with charcoal and chalks. Color surfaces directly on the bottom guided by the feeling or memory of the moment. My way of painting is almost intuitive, an approach that allows me to be open to unexpected moments of seeing something that is not obvious. I try to expand and include these discoveries in my paintings and open new experiences, interpretations, and reductions of the surrounding world to the viewer.